We skied in a wedge, poles wrapped around our waists with the basket ends looped into the straps. You had to suck your stomach in to make it work, and then the poles would settle onto your hips and your hands would be free to do all the work.
And so we slipped the ruts out and picked up the gates, one by one, gathering them in our arms until our little 12-year-old bodies felt ridiculously overwhelmed by the awkwardness of carrying a bunch of breakaways that were longer than our body and probably heavier than most of us. The gates, wrapped in an arm over a shoulder, would slide out in all kinds of random directions, making you feel like you were collecting big sticks for a fire rather than an organized race room.
But then, the bungees would come out and our world would become simple again. The big, grown up bungees with the hooks on the end. The elastic, in all kinds of beautiful colors later in life but in the beginning only a yellow black orange combo that said “construction.” We felt so awesome. One of us would hold the gates in the climb while the other stretched the cord as far as it would go. One bungee was all it took to hold your whole world together.
I fell in love with bungee cords after that. What a super amazing stretchy thing that comes in all shapes and sizes and still holds your world together. Along with duct tape and zipties, do we really need anything else? Well, obviously ratchet straps but that’s a whole other realm.
I have used bungees cords for everything from strapping a dry bag onto the back of the motorcycle to putting the tents together for the Block Party. I’ve got a bungee in my hiking backpack just in case the zippers pop or I need to gather a bunch of wood for a fire (at a legal spot of course). It is perfect for toting a large collection of sticks around or for tying a slew of tiki torches together. Have you ever tried to carry a bunch of tiki torches? They should work like ski gates, but the tiki part is relatively way heavier than you would be anticipating.
My dad used bungee cords to tie the shovels together on his job sites, especially during the early excavation periods. He had more shovels than anyone I ever saw. It’s probably where I fell in love with shoveling. Which reminds me that I need a new shovel. Mine is all beat up from trying to dig new garden beds in my pure rock soil lawn.
And bungees come in all shapes and sizes. Has anyone ever seen a bungee small enough to hold your pencils together?
Way more fun than just using a big purple asparagus rubber band. One of the tiny tiny bungees with the ball at the end of a loop rather than the ones with the hooks on either end.
The first stretchable cord was used in 500 A.D., up in Siberia where they used strips of caribou gut. Hopefully cleaned really well first. By 1936, English Glider pilots were using rubber elastic cords to launch their planes off the sides of mountains, earning the name Bungee Cords. I knew these had to have mountains tied into their history somewhere! Bungee cords even helped latch things down in space with big thick gloves — a perfect transition to trying to tie gates together with ski gloves on!
I am sure others of you have used bungee cords to jump off bridges or towers or anything else really. I like to keep my feet on the ground, but it’s amazing to me how much the bungee has become a trusted part of our lives. Literally. People are willing to trust their entire existence to the faith that the bungee will catch them and pull them back from certain death.
What a beautiful thing, something so simple that can save lives and hold your world together. It’s a beautiful thing, a way around having to tie knots and still get all the stuff done. Just remember to replace them when they get all stretched out.
